The Jefferson County Coroner's Office identified the woman as Pouneh Bahri. She was 25 years old, and from Virginia.

Bahri was killed just before 12:15 p.m. in the 1400 block of 20th Street South. Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards said the MAX DART bus, which looks like a trolley, was traveling eastbound on 14th Avenue when the driver turned left onto 20th Street. The young woman was struck in the crosswalk.

She was a student at Horizons School on Birmingham's Southside. She was one of 41 students at the school for special needs students aged 18 to 26. The school teaches independent living.

Witnesses said she was dragged about a half block before the DART bus came to a stop. A UAB Highlands doctor stopped and rushed to her aid, as did a nurse and several other passers-by. The doctor crawled under the bus to try to help her.

She was pronounced dead a short time later. The driver, whose name hasn't been released, was visibly distraught at the scene and was checked out by Birmingham Fire and Rescue medics.

Reached by telephone Wednesday in Centreville, Virginia, Bahri's parents Audrey and Behraz Bahri, said they were too distraught to discuss their daughter's death. A 2000 article published in their hometown chronicled Bahri's radical brain surgery at age 3.

According to that article on Fairfaxtimes.com, doctors removed the right hemisphere of Bahri's brain to treat seizures. She suffered from a rare condition known as Rasmussen's Encephalitis. Rasmussen's Encephalitis is a progressive neurological disorder that results in severe seizures, loss of motor skills and speech, paralysis, inflammation of the brain and mental deterioration.

The family spoke with the publication when Bahri was 11 years old and a sixth-grader at Centreville Elementary School, thriving eight years after the surgery. At that time, Bahri told the interviewer her recovery was a "dream come true." The entire interview with the Bahri family can be found here.

Horizons School executive director Jade Carter spoke with AL.com Tuesday about Bahri and her death. She said Bahri had just finished a cooking class where she had helped make soup. She and a group of friends were walking back to their school-owned apartment complex two blocks away. "They walk up and down the street all day,'' Carter said. "We work so diligently to keep them safe and healthy. One of the things we do is train them to walk and watch."

"This is a group that doesn't have many options or chances in life and
to have it cut short so tragically is overwhelming,'' Carter said.

Carter notified Bahri's parents of her death. More from Carter's interview can be found here.